Merciless Union by Faith Summers

16

Lucca

Ilower the hood of my jacket over my face and blend in with the shadows in the alleyway.

I'm just checking my surroundings once more to make sure no one followed me. My car is parked a few blocks away. I traveled the rest of the way on foot to be more discreet.

I took a risk coming out here. One I know I shouldn't have, mainly when I could have used the phone instead of taking this trip. Since I plan to go to the cemetery for my next stop, using the phone is a little out of the question.

Why am I taking these risks that could get me killed?

Because I'll go out of my damn mind otherwise, not knowing what to do. Today is my downtime day, and I should be resting. I just couldn't rest, knowing how hard I'd rocked the nest and shaken the foundation of my marriage.

When I left Aria this morning, I thought I'd give her some space to think, so I spent the day in my private quarters, coming out only after dark when I could hide under the cover of night.

The people I'm seeking are the only two who can help balance me right now.

The first is probably the only one who can help me win my wife back. The other is dead.

With the shit storm hanging over my head, I feel it's more important to do whatever will help me focus better on staying alive than sitting down and waiting for danger and death to come knocking at my door.

That’s why I’m visiting the psychiatrist first.

I also came here first because it's the least likely place anyone from the Bratva will look for me. Because they can't track me down, they'll start with all the places they know I go to. This is not one of them.

Dr. Belmont lives in a custom-built three-story beachfront house on Hermosa Beach. The décor of the exterior and the cream and burgundy colors make it look like a cross between a European chateau and a villa you'd find on an island somewhere in paradise.

A house like this, worth several million, is precisely the place a doctor like Bernard Belmont would live. It suits the man the world thinks he is.

At first glance, the good doctor looks as pompous as what you'd expect from an Ivy League graduate and alumni who lectures part-time at Stanford and runs a successful private practice for L.A.'s high society.

When you get to know him, the first thing you notice is there’s so much more than what he allows everyone else to see.

It’s like this house. No one would guess a former rock star lived here. Not until you step inside.

My first appointment with him was here. That was also where I met his late wife, the woman who would seal his unrepayable debt to me.

That came after almost a year of knowing each other, or maybe it’s best to say knowing of each other.

How we actually met was this: my target was one of his patients.

His name was Nico Bertoia, a consigliere in the Italian mafia. The asshole raped and killed two sisters of one of the Brigadiers.

Nobody knew he did it until I found evidence of his crimes. I found Dr. Belmont at the same time when his secretary was kidnapped and feared dead. The woman was missing for weeks, and the police couldn't find her. Because he suspected Nico of kidnapping her, and I looked like the only person who could help him, he gave me all the information I needed for one life to save another.

That's exactly what happened. I found Nico, terminated him, and saved what remained of Dr. Belmont's secretary. The things Nico did to that woman is what you'd most likely see in a horror film designed to leave a nasty psychological effect.

She was only kept alive as a pet he played with and tortured. Of course, she wasn't the same after, and both Dr. Belmont and I knew maybe death would have been better.

We were even at that point. No one owed the other.

Then the day came when I decided I wanted to move back into the house where my family had been murdered. I felt it was my duty to go back there and take care of the place and all the things my parents held dear, like the roses in the Court of Blood and Thorns and my father’s birds. I didn’t think it was right that Marylin continued to be there looking after the place when it was my duty as the last Dyshekov.

To go forward, I knew I had to find a way to face the demons from my past, and I needed help to do it.

As a child, I should have seen a psychiatrist or someone professional after witnessing the aftermath of my family's massacre, but it's not common to seek help like that in the circles we travel in. It's seen as weak.

So when I knew I needed help, I also knew I had to get it from someone outside my world.

Dr. Belmont helped get me back on track. I saw him for two years. Then we didn’t see each other again for another two.

It was he who summoned me.

He wanted to avenge his wife's death, and he needed my help.

Now I need his.

I do a final scan of the dark street before me and step out of the shadows. When I get on to the drive, I keep continue to the back of the house and jump the fence.

He keeps a key under the mat by the backdoor.

I haven't had to use this key in years. It's still there, though, and when I open the door and slip in, I can hear Dr. Belmont playing his guitar in the living room.

He's not playing the electric guitar tonight. It's a classical one but the song he's playing is a rock tune I don't quite recognize, which means it's probably a new song he wrote.

Another song for his late wife.

Since he understands obsession the way I do, I'm hoping he'll help me the way I need. I stop by the door and watch him, knowing he knows I'm here.

When he's finished playing the next verse, he glances over his shoulder but doesn't meet my eyes.

"Could give a man a heart attack, Merciless," he states, then turns on the little stool he's sitting on to face me. "You haven't been here like this in a while."

"I haven't needed to."

“Good honeymoon? I hope you took your girl somewhere nice.”

“I wish I could have.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “I was waiting for your call to schedule the next appointment, especially after the last time we spoke.”

“This is it.” I walk in and plant myself down on the chair in front of him.

The last time we spoke was just before the wedding. Dr. Belmont gave me a heads up that Aria knew who'd abused her when she was little. I suspected Pasha. Now I have the confirmation.

Dr. Belmont looks me over and narrows his eyes. “What’s going on, Lucca? You look like shit.”

"That's pretty much how I feel. I'm here for me. And I'm here for her too."

“You? You haven’t needed me in years.”

"I need you now, and this is another debt repayment." Meaning I need his silence.

He smirks. "I'm never going to stop owing you, am I?"

“No.”

His brows knit together. “I paid you good money.”

“You know money can’t buy me. The fact you know who I am and what I do is enough reason to kill you.”

“But you won’t kill me, though, will you, Merciless?”

"That's right. You're the only person in the outside world I can still trust." And that makes him valuable to me.

When his face softens, I know he doesn't mind this odd relationship we have, even if he sounds like he does.

A majority of people in this world never meet guys like me. He is one of the few who knows the value in it, and he keeps that contact because he never knows when he might need me again. In the back of his mind, he knows I can do things he can't, and I'll even bet he wishes to some extent that he wasn't thinking like that.

"What can I do for you, Lucca?" he asks, setting his guitar down.

“I need your promise of silence first.” That’s how I always started my sessions with him.

“You know you have it.”

With the bow of his head, I inhale deeply, and then I start talking. I tell him everything, and he listens intently, never interrupting.

When I'm done, I know it's the parts about Aria that cut him up the deepest.

Those parts cut me deep too, but since I had to tell him I was supposed to kill my wife, I'm not surprised he looks like he's lost some respect for me.

He stares at me for a few moments too long, and I wonder if he's actually going to talk to me.

Something akin to relief washes over me when his lips part.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

“Help Aria in whatever way you can.”

“I was already going to do that. I suppose the real question is, what do you want me to do for you?”

“I need you to help Aria in whatever way you can,” I repeat. “Helping her to remember means she’ll remember me.”

“What good will that do?”

"She's my Wendy, Dr. Belmont," I confess, and his eyes go wide. "She's the girl I told you about years ago when we first met."

Just saying that name–Wendy—tells him everything. It tells him about the only love I had and lost, and he knows what she means to me.

He knows the whole story about Aria and me as children, except where I left out the parts about whose daughter she was. I have never told anybody that, and I never gave her real name.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Understanding suddenly comes into his eyes.

"I didn't realize how much I loved her until she came back to me, and I lost her. Now I don't want to lose her for good. I want her to remember who I am so she can remember she loves me. You're the only person who can help me do that because, like me, you're the only person she will trust."

When his shoulders fall, I realize how desperate I must sound.

“Lucca, you do know that’s not something I can promise.”

"I know, but I want you to try." With that said, I stand. There's nothing more I can say here. "Thursday at lunchtime?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

“My house until further notice.”

He nods, and I leave.

The next stop is the cemetery to see Timothy.